Bad news for you. They will get back into power if the Tories fail on equal marriage, guaranteed. Tory MP cabinet member Francis Maude actually said that shortly after the consultation began. Your right wing bigot friends in the party will be the ones responsible. So be very careful what you and they wish for, stupid bint.

Oh just shut up you tedious bloody sow. Go and find yourself another hobby or buy yourself a vibrator or take up gin (drinking it, playing it, couldn’t give a tinker’s cuss) but stop BORING us with your slack-jawed lack-witted bloody drivel.

Trolls are one thing. But do you have to be the dullest person on the planet as well?

With the swing of most voters who did not vote Tory or Lib Dem going to Labour who support equal marriage – its particularly ludicrous and grotesque that the Tory right and religious extremists seek to blame electoral losses on equal marriage.

I find it particularly telling that the BBC and Sky appear to have been seeking out drooling and homophobic commentary from the Tory right. Is that Catholic leaders trying to manipulate politics with dishonesty? Like other Catholics tried to manipulate school children as a political tool regarding gay couples being able to marry.

Interesting this morning that senior LibDem sources have made it clear to The Times that they may withdraw from the coalition in “weeks or months” to prevent further damage from the party, particularly if right wing extremism is continued by the likes of Dorries and the bandwagin jumped on by the likes of Baroness Warsi.

Indeed they are trying to destroy the Tory party from within with their religious extremism and blatant bigotry. I also believe the Liberal Dems will eventually pull out if it continues much more. I wouldn’t want to be one of the right wing back benchers if that scenario were to unfold. It could also open up a pandora’s box against religious meddling in the political system if they’re not restrained.

@Stu…..
…..Strangely these people seem obsessed with incest., but then there is a lot of it going on in straight society,usually within the family unit. There was even a case in the papers last week of a young girl who was pregnant to her father and she said if she could she would marry him. cant see a Gay man marrying his father or brother………

“A common argument against gay marriage in Australia is that it is the thin end of the (gay) wedge that will lead society down a slippery slope to complete collapse. The argument holds that the “gay lobby” only wants gay marriage to be a starting point. Next will be gay adoption, IVF and surrogacy (all of which exist in Australia already). After that will come the lowering of the age of consent and polygamy/polyandry. After that, siblings will be allowed to marry. Once this agenda has been realised, the stage will be set for the legalisation of bestiality and “inter-species marriage”. The final step will be “inanimate object marriage. Once all of this is done, so the argument goes, naturally every single heterosexual person will have either turned gay or married an animal or object with which it cannot reproduce, and society will be forever destroyed. This argument overlooks several factors, including that: in none of the places where gay

couples are able to marry has this occurred; gay marriage activists tend to stop lobbying once they have gay marriage rather than moving on to inter-species marriage; and that most heterosexuals are in fact heterosexuals, and are not simply biding their time until they can legally marry a person of the same sex/donkey/computer keyboard.”

It’s very revealing that the opponents of equal marriage, almost all of them, are religious extremists and obsess so much about polygamy and incest isn’t it yet nobody else even conceives of it, at least not normal people?

I am calling you an idiot, Duncan because you are behaving like one by trying to suggest some comparison, link or similarity between gay loving relationships which are legal in the UK and incest which is not (for good reason).

You’re an idiot. Aren’t you aware of the laws of the land? Incest, polygamy, polyandry are prohibited. Point to the evidence please? Identify the people who are demanding such nonsense? I recommend you contact the governments of Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, South Africa, Argentina, the governors of six states in America, and the Mayor of Mexico City. Ask them for a report indicating the number of occurrences. Now run along, you have a lot of letter writing to do and come back here when you have the results for all to read. We wait in anticipation.

Firstly, to whose education do you refer, sweetheart? If mine, I’m proud to have been educated at a state comprehensive. On a side note, I’d be interested to learn where (and if) Stu, Robert from South Kensington and Iris were educated.

I’ll repeat my point again for your benefit, my friend.

This site (and the 3 or 4 posters who frequent the messageboard) constantly refer to this proposal as ‘equal marriage.’ Obviously, this emotive term is far more attractive than ‘homosexual marriage.’

But what does equal marriage actually mean? It surely means giving everyone the right to marry whoever they want. Who are we to deny men the right to marry their brother, for instance?

Having said all that, I’m glad you’re not going to waste your time – it’d be catastrophic if you ended up utlising your valuable time using childish insults in an attempt to mask the fact that you’re losing an argument.

If my education is relevant in the slightest – then I was educated in the state system in Northumberland and County Durham. I then went to university on the south coast and have subsequently undertaken profession post graduate studies via universities in the North East, Oxford and London.

Equal marriage means permitting those people who are in legally recognised relationships being able to marry. Where relationships are based on love and commitment and who meet the legal requirements of marriage. Whereby those relationships are for example consensual (requiring free will, mental capacity, above legal age of consent etc) and avoiding issues which are unlawful in this country eg incest.

Gay relationships are not illegal and thus barring marriage is discriminatory based purely on orientation – which is arguably a breach of the Equalities Act (this would of course need testing – and some couples have already embarked on legal cases to establish a precedent).

If you want to introduce marriage for incestuous relationships then you will have to both demonstrate that the relationships themselves should not be illegal (someone gay people do not have to do, because our relationships are legal) and then campaign for marriage rights – which should not piggy back on gay campaigns, because most (if not all) LGBT people are not in or interested in incestuous relationships.

If you want polygamous marriage – campaign for it, but do not attempt to subvert our campaigning with a factor than most LGBT people are not concerned with.

Its sheer desperation on the part of extremists (or incest lovers – you haven’t denied that you are in an incestuous relationship, and thus one has to presume that with you so earnestly seeking incest marriage that you must “love” your mother) to try and make such ignorant and false links.

You are presuming beyond your knowledge, and, in point of fact, I don’t see why there should be an objection in principle to the combinations you cite. What intrigues me is that gay marriage is seen as an incitement to these forms of marriage, when straight marriage is not. Statistically alone, these vilified relationships are mostly heterosexual.

I sense real desperation among the hateful bigots. Things are moving rapidly in the right direction the world over, and you can see the poor thick twunts are feeling very, very threatened by the terrible spectre of acceptance and equality. Hence the fact that their “arguments” are becoming increasingly ludicrous, shrill and fact-free, even for them. They are playing dirtier and dirtier (e.g. trying to get children to sign petitions) and are saying things which simply make no sense (e.g. the above, and “Labour made gains because of the Coalition’s support for equal marriage” when Labour support equal marriage). If it wasn’t such a serious issue then their pathetic last-ditch efforts at preserving the ability to persecute our particular minority would be comical in the extreme. Although I do still laugh at these idiots.

They put so much effort into “keeping us down”, effort which could be invested in something worthwhile instead. What sad bar stewards.

Thank goodness Tory MEP Daniel Hannen knows their dismal results are not down to the marriage equality issue, perhaps he should be giving lessons to other party members as to why they took such a smacking at the polls.

I suspect that there are millions of people that realise equal marriage is being consulted on but nearly everyone is being affected by the cuts this government are making. And while local government has no say centrally, it gives the party leaders food for thought

Nadine Dorries has not yet responded to any of my tweets asking her to tell me why she is so against equal marriage and I doubt that she will do.

*I suspect that there are millions of people that do not realise equal marriage is being consulted on but nearly everyone is being affected by the cuts this government are making. And while local government has no say centrally, it gives the party leaders food for thought*

D.McCabe, my cousin tweeted her too and didn’t get any response. I think we know what her response would be though, the usual right wing mantras, one man one woman nonsense and no gays demanding it. She’s not too bright and is at odds with much of the Tory party, a pariah in fact. She’ll probably be gone in the next election, thankfully.

Of course the idea that they lost seats because of marriage equality is nonsense. Sarkozy’s just been ousted in France and he was anti-gay marriage. The Danish elected a pro-gay marriage party last year and will have gay marriage in June.

The Tories lost votes for many different reasons but they really wish that there was a quick and easy fix which isn’t the case. People like Dorries et al also need to realise that they didn’t win the election of 2010 so they can’t implement the policies that they or their voters want in full. The Lib Dems didn’t join the coaltion simply to rubber stamp the worst excesses of a right wing government (although to a certain extent i feel that’s what they have done).

I agree bobbleobble. Nutty Nadine’s response, along with the rest of the prejudiced right-wing of the Tory party, is a good example of post hoc ergo propter hoc. The fact that Tory support went to Labour shows the logical fallacy of her position; if people rejected DC’s proposals, why didn’t the support for the Christian Peoples [sic.] Alliance increase dramatically in London, given that their campaign was targeted solely against equal marriage?

Not just 2015. If they abandon it now, after being so publicly in favour, they’ll alienate an entire generation of voters who support it. Whilst Cameron and Osborne are way out of touch with regards to the average British person they are extremely down to Earth compared to Nadine Dorries, so for her to be the one criticising is just hilarious. Another great example of politicians believing their views as correct and that anyone who disagrees with them only does so out of spite or ignorance.

Of course it’s their gay marriage plans, not their croneyism, the fact that they’ve been dismantling the NHS, the fact that they’re deep in Murdoch’s pockets and their abysmal economic plans. Of course.

Same old same old blame the gays as an attempt to distract voters from your parties real failures.

However I suspect the Tories, like the Catholic Clergy will find that once winning strategy no longer works. A majority of voters (said to be over 50% in the UK) support marriage equality and so now see this tactic for what it is … politicians trying to blame a minority group as a mask to its own incompetence and/or pockets of outdated bigotry among its ranks.

The extreme right wingers in their party will make them unelectable for many years to come if Cameron doesn’t do something about it. Enough is enough. What they’re doing is handing the election to Labour in 2015, as evidenced last week. So let them rant against equal marriage, their party can kiss re-election goodbye for the forseeable future. The economy aside, I for one won’t vote for them ever again if they fail on equal marriage and so will many more gay voters who they desperately need if you look at the 2010 results.

I won’t ever vote for them again either if they U-turn on this, and it seems that a lot of others feel the same way. I’ve told them as much. I really feel that they’d lose a lot more by U-turning than they would gain.

I think the idea that equal marriage will make things worse for the Tories is just yet another outright lie that the usual suspects have concocted in their desperation to “keep us down”. They are coming up with increasingly ridiculous “arguments” in their desperation to stop equal marriage; they know that it’ll be a hell of a kick in the teeth for discrimination in all sorts of ways, and that just won’t do, because clearly they want gay teens to continue committing suicide, gay people to continue facing prejudice in the workplace, and all the other wonderful hatred that gay people still currently experience. What utter s**tbags they must be to fight so very hard to retain all those sorts of things when there are so many other things they could be doing instead.

It’s an open secret in Westminster that Equal Marriage will not be in this next Queen’s Speech. Mrs Balls is neatly jumping on the back of this to appear more pro-gay than Cameron’s crew. A neat switch.

Still, I suppose it can’t do any harm to our cause to have another strong voice speaking up for us, whatever the political machinations.

Just because it isn’t in the Queens speech means nothing…It can still be tabled this Parliament. Cameron may just be saving the old dear some blushes. After all, the gay man in her family wimped out and married a woman because he was a coward,….

Just think: if equal marriage goes through then it’ll eventually pave the way for gay royals to be open about it. And gay footballers. And gay everyone else. What an utterly horrible prospect that must be for the thick bigots: absolutely everyone being honest about who they are, instead of having to keep it to themselves at potentially enormous personal cost, simply for the comfort of a minority of homophobes who just can’t cope with how the world really is. Such appalling openness has to be stopped no matter what, because obviously the whole world should pander to the desires of a few spiteful narrow-minded idiots.

I’m wondering if Ms Dorries is really a Labour plant inserted years ago with the purpose of sabotaging a future Tory government & secretly working under the direction from Ed & Yvette ….she’s certainly a great asset to the Labour Party.I never thought they’d be popular again this quickly.

Of course it was ludicrous. But that’s the “Emperor’s New Clothes” effect in play. It was just easier for the Tories to swallow a lie than listen to the voice at the back that says “your policies are cr@p”

The right wing extremism in the Tory party is going to be its undoing. The Liberal Democrats should pull out of the coalition once and for all. I also heard that there are some in the Tory Party who want a vote of no confidence in Cameron, only 46 signatures are needed to bring it about. He needs to draw a line in the sand and put the extremists on notice.

I did read elsewhere that, so far, there is only 1 signature on the letter calling for a no confidence vote. …. ummmm, I wonder who that would be ! In 2010 vile Ms D said she was part of a plot to oust speaker Bercow ….. how’s that working out for yer Ms D :)

Except that would likely result in the Tories having a leadership election, and consequentially risks getting someone less favourable to equal marriage in charge, someone who might be likely to pull the bill before it gets voted on (especially without any Lib Dems left to ensure that doesn’t happen). Unless you’re banking on another election getting called and Labour winning a majority. It’s not a risk I’m keen to take though when we’re so close to finally getting this bill through.

@Stu – But again, you’re then relying on Labour getting a majority in the election and being the ones who are the new government. I’d just be concerned that DC would get ousted, another – far more homophobic Tory – wins a leadership bid, and then we’d risk getting a Tory majority in the election, with this far more homophobic Tory leader, and this whole bill being dropped.

I know it looks unlikely that the Tories could win a majority right now, but as the old saying goes: a week is a long time in politics. A lot can change. I am by no means a fan of DC, but I’d rather have him in charge, with the homophobes stuck on the backbenches, than take the risk of him being replaced by one of those homophobes. Especially when we’re so close to finally getting this bill through.

@Stu – Except that they wouldn’t have a majority. As things stand the Tories would still have more MPs than Labour and the Lib Dems combined (which was why the Lib Dems couldn’t go into a coalition with Labour back in 2010). So the Tories would have more of a right to form a minority government until a proper election was called, which would be a huge risk to this bill, and then you’d still have the risk of the Tories winning a majority with an anti-gay marriage leader.

The Tories might not be likely to win an election tomorrow, but things in politics can change very quickly. Even if the Lib Dems pulled out, and the coalition collapsed tomorrow, they still wouldn’t be able to hold an election right away. Just look at the Netherlands, where such a thing has happened, and they’re still not having another election until September. They need time to arrange one. The likelihood would be that the Tories would carry on to run a minority government, until an election could be arranged sometime in the Autumn. By which time public opinion might have turned back more favourably to them, especially if they get a new leader. Basically, it’s a risk I wouldn’t want to take. Currently all of the main three party leader support gay marriage, and I’d rather it stay that way rather than take any risks before this bill is put into law.

They’re not, actually. Some of them even accept that revulsion over somebody else’s intimate relationships is not a basis for denying legal equality. Those who think it is are generally of the ilk you describe, – Keith.

Nail on the head. Why do homophobes think it’s their business what gay people do in the bedroom? They accept that it’s a private thing with straight people, so why discriminate? It’s just another standard homophobic “argument” which doesn’t even remotely stack up when you look at it properly. Do these people find anal sex “repulsive” when straight people do it? What if I find straight sex “repulsive”? And who cares who finds what “repulsive” between consenting adults in private? Etc, etc. I know most of us know all this already so I’ll leave it there.

It’s quite striking that *everything* these people say is clearly wrong, dishonest, or both. In the end their stance is fuelled by simple blind prejudice and intolerance, and crap like the above is just their tiny minds trying to come up with excuses for that (“The Bible says I’ve got to be homophobic” being another good one, of course….)

Would it be too cynical of me to think this is all blown up to deflect from the online storm re Louise Mensch’s sister who is alleged to work in NY for Harper-Collins a Murdoch publication? Enquiries to see if this is in fact a ‘conflict of interest’ seeing as she, Louise, was on the House of Commons committee looking into Murdoch and son. Perhaps nepotism too. If this is all true then did ‘Call me Dave’ and the rest of the committee know about the inter family connections?

The Tory Right is the KamiKaze tendency of modern politics. They are undermining a Tory leadership and attacking a coalition which have given them the only whiff of power in 20 years in the belief that they will gain more public support that way. La, la, la, la…..

Am very please to hear someone standing up for marriage Equality from the opposition. On this she is correct and I hope David Cameron sticks to his words by seeing this through for fairness, equality and a stable society.
–
Well Done Ms. Cooper.

Can’t quite understand why we have to wait until the 2013 Queen’s speech until an equal civil marriage bill is introduced.

Surely, the libdems/greens/labour could get together to introduce a members bill for a proper marriage equality bill long before that date. It could also include religious marriages (with opt outs) as well. Both Lab and lib dems dont want just equal civil marriage anyway , they want full marriage equality. Surely they’d have the support of the liberal conservatives.

I think waiting for another year or more before we actually get a bill written seems mad.

“My overriding concern is that if we do indeed as a Parliament change legislation to allow same sex marriage now, then what will our successors be discussing and have to legislate for in the future?; Polygamy?; Three-way relationships?; Who knows what else?”

It’s also irrelevant. Without a change to gay marriage those issues could still be under discussion in 30 years time. And so what if they are, it’s up to the people of that time to make arguments in favour and against and come to conclusions, it’s not up to the politicians of this generation to protect those poor souls in Westminster 20 years down the line.

I also wonder at the mentality of some of these people who seem to think that if gay marriage fails this time around then somehow it will all go away. Look at New York and Denmark for example. They kept pushing and pushing and now finally New York has gay marriage and Denmark will next month. We won’t give up if Cameron fails.

Oh and Calder Valley could well vote him out next time too, won’t that be a loss?

And nobody is going after them, no Tories for sure and no LibDems in the House, absolute silence. Don’t these right wing bigots know how absolutely absurd they sound parrotting the asinine statements of C4M and Lord Carey? Yvette Cooper is right, utterly ludicrous. Notice it’s only Labour calling them out on it.

I’ve already started making a least of seats to watch at the election in 2015. I’ve added Calder Valley. For each one I see fall to Labour I’m going to help myself to a large shot of something alcholic!

I’ve asked bigot Whittaker to get official government reports from the countries he mentioned confirming that equal civil marriage was responsible for the occurrences he lists. The onus is on him to produce the evidence. They’re all parrotting C4M’s mission statement. What a vile man. Oh and he’ll claim he’s not homophobic if challenged because he knows or has gay friends. Pull the other one!

If my memory serves me well, wasn’t this the same Craig Whittaker who was arrested last boxing day for allegedly assaulting his son before he emigrated to Australia? I believe the prosecution dropped the case but even so. How he got away with it does make you wonder and tells you the sort of man he is, vile and violent. A strong christian family value.

To those who would say no the Equal Rights and Marriage Equality for Gay people please watch this video and then examine your heart and put yours son or daughter in the same situation Do they deserve this pain … …

Poignant and touching. But to the opponents of equal marriage, they’d look at that and say…”gays in the UK don’t have to put up with those injustice because they have Civil Partnerships.” something they interject at every provocation to deny us access to equal marriage because they believe iCPs are fully equal and unnecessary. Ask traitor, Ben Bradshaw.

Closed now. The right result, but disappointingly close considering which paper it is. No doubt the bigots were sending the link round…after all, we know they’ve been launching an all-out, desperate effort to stop equal marriage, because they are well aware of the wider implications if it goes through. They know it’ll be the beginning of the end of their backward, small-minded prejudices infecting society. Equality, horrible equality…save us….

Yvette Cooper wife of Ed Balls ( Labour tend to maintain their maiden names in an attempt to fool voters) is being oportunistic as usual.

As a gay man a catholic and a tory I have issues with the gay marriage proposals.

Equality yes and brought about fairly calmly and without venom.

Stonewall seem intent on causing harm to our cause by insisting that hetrosexuals must in future not be allowed to call themselves husband and wife and use the word partner instead.

How pathetic this whole idea is as it upsets the majority without the need to do so.

Why can we not simply use the word partner as a choice, and leave the hetrosexuals to maintain husband and wife.Stonewall have not sought my permission to insist I want these rights they wish to impose on the majority causing bad feelings.Stonewall and others kick up a fuss and create annoyance, and upset just for the sake of it.Of course gay marriage was not the only reason the torys lost so many council seats last week just one
of many

Patrick your religious views are a personal to you. If you would feel uncomfortable getting civilly married and referring to your spouse as your husband then the simple answer is don’t get civilly married.

However please don’t try and push your discomfort with semantics onto me and thousands of others. My husband and I married in the Netherlands – where civil marriage and religious marriage are totally separated (Churches are unable to perform civil marriages). During the civil ceremony at the townhall the clerk referred to us as man and man and husbands because that’s what we are.

I am sure you are not intentionally doing this but when you make statement such as you have I experience that as an arrogance on your part. As a Catholic and Conservative you are not entitled to own language.

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